Moscow (AFP) – Alaska, the US state that will host the meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump on Friday, is a source of imperial nostalgia and often less-than-serious territorial claims in Russia. The territory that Russia sold to the United States in 1867 is now a symbol of the entwined history of the countries, whose relations have been severely damaged since Russia launched its offensive in Ukraine in 2022.
To some experts, the summit in Alaska evoked memories of the thaw between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War. “It’s a classically orchestrated summit, like in the era of detente,” Russian political scientist Fyodor Lukyanov said on Telegram. “Its symbolic significance is the absence of intermediaries: the powers, so to speak, decide for themselves,” he added, saying that China is “not close” to Alaska and that Europe is “as far away as possible”.
– Fur trading hub –
But beyond being a unique meeting place, Alaska also fuels Russian memories of the Tsarist empire, the historic predecessor of the Soviet Union. “For Russia, Alaska symbolises the peak of an expansion,” Alexander Baunov, senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said on the centre’s website. It was “when the Russian continental empire had, for the only time, succeeded in crossing an ocean like the European empires”, Baunov said. A Russian colony since the 18th century, Alaska was eventually sold to the United States for $7.2 million in 1867 by Tsar Alexander II. The remote territory was economically very difficult for the Russians to exploit and at the time its sale was welcomed by the Imperial Court as the country was struggling economically. But the transaction later came to be seen as a regrettable bargain after what formerly was a fur trading hub turned out to house crucial natural resources: gold and oil.
– ‘Our bears’ –
In recent years, the price at which Alaska was sold, considered by some to be ridiculously low, and the legal validity of the transaction have become regularly recurring debates in Russia. In July 2022, in the midst of patriotic fervour in Russia and as tensions soared between Moscow and Washington following the offensive against Ukraine, the Alaska issue resurfaced. The speaker of the Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, spoke of “lands to be returned”, describing Alaska as a “disputed territory”. Russia’s authorities are apparently not interested in reclaiming it. In 2014, Vladimir Putin, asked by a pensioner about the possibility, replied: “My dear, why do you need Alaska?” adding the territory was “too cold”.
Still, the idea of reclaiming Alaska is an endless source of memes widely circulating on Russian social media. One of the most famous claims that “our soul” suffered from the loss of Alaska because “it’s where our bears live”. The recapture of Alaska is even mentioned in a 1990s hit by a rock band Putin likes, Lyube, with the lyrics: “Stop messing around, America…And give back our Alaskan lands.”
© 2024 AFP
